Hope y'all like this better than the old Great Destroyer. BTW, I'm not trying to hide the circuit, I'm just a generally nervous builder, so I like to insulate the SHIT out of stuff.
Seems to me that with the electrical tape and free floating circuit boards, you are just asking for having to do repairs on these later.
It might be a good idea to look into alternate means of securing your components and shielding them from contact shorts?
The pedals i have heard sound fantastic, but, i really think you would be doing yourself a favor to make them a bit more bulletproof, particularly considering how equipment-abusive many of the folks who are likely to be interested in your pedals are prone to be.
I really enjoy the noise they make though. Nice work on that front.
As far as the circuit boards are concerned- I'd really like to get PCBS that mount to the switch so that are suspended, but thats an EPIC investment I just don't have. Tape has been working for Devi Ever for years though, I'm not too worried.
Starve is a pot limiting current to the fuzz ciruit, whicg often makes them do whacky stuff.
When you solder wires to those potentiometers that way, trough the hole, you weaken the contact between lug and the resistive element, and that makes them prone to 'opening', the pot doesn't work anymore. You should solder to the lug, or better, use pots which have holes through their lugs.
The Freestompboxes Forum search function is soo great, use the search function..., the S E A R C H function.
Well, I guess, when you put the soldering iron right on there for a while, it starts to get damaged. I wasn't trying to be scientific about that, it's just that I've seen like 6-8 faulty controls that were soldered like that (lousy repairs), and when I took the pots out for measuring, one or more of the lugs had lost contact with the pot's 'resistor'.
The Freestompboxes Forum search function is soo great, use the search function..., the S E A R C H function.
Pot lugs are rivetted to the carbon track to make contact. When you solder to the rivet point the heat expands the rivet and loosens the connection (and can introduce extra resistance). You should always solder to the pin or lug away from the rivet point and be careful how much heat you use.
If you're careful, you can bend the PCB pins into little hooks you can loop the wire on to solder in place.
And, using printed circuit boards to make things like mounting the switches easier doesn't necessarily have to be a big expense; you can etch the boards at home at a VERY modest cost. I etch most of my own boards, and the more I do it, the easier and quicker it gets. Sure it may take some time to do it, but it's still alot quicker than hand-wiring it all on perf. The only thing that really takes time is drawing up the design, and you only have to do that once. I'm sure you could design and etch up a home-made board for this very easily; it would save you a ton of headache in the long-run. Then, you wouldn't have to ruin your work by putting that stupid tape all over it.
"Analog electronics in music is dead. Analog effects pedal design is a dead art." - Fran
even getting your boards made only costs around $100. not much for your business... it will definitely save you lots of time in the long run and time=money!
or the price of said pots.
fair enough.. that is one way to put it.